JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT (THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH)
Year:2018 | Volume:18 | Issue:3|Papers Count:8

Some economists believe that economic crises and problems, such as economic volatility, high unemployment and inflation and the social losses, stem from the government's economic intervention and the implementation of its imperative policies. In this regard, the lack of implementation of the government’ s imperative policies by central bank and its independence is still a controversial issue. In the present paper, using Stackelberg model and game theory approach, the efficiency of bond issuance is evaluated as a result of central bank independence and its effect on social loss. For this purpose, a 3-player game including government, central bank and speculators having different objective functions, is designed for Iran. Modeling and numerical analyzing are performed using softwares GAMS and MAPLE during 2005 to 2009. According to minimization of social loss, the results indicate if the government does not play a dominant leadership role, and conversely, if the central bank exerts its leadership in making monetary policy via open market operations (central bank independence), the social loss can be reached to its minimum level.

The aim of this study is to investigate optimal monetary and fiscal policies for the Iranian economy considering Ramsey problem. Using a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium model, the effects of imposing various taxes such as consumption tax, capital income tax, labor income tax and profit tax are examined by different scenarios. The results indicate that Friedman’ s rule, or zero inflation is determined as optimal monetary policy under scenarios with and without price rigidities. In addition, since the governments try to minimize the distortions from taxes levied on different economic sectors, necessity of a subsidy or negative tax is confirmed under Ramsey conditions. According to the findings, the inflation rate not only depends on nominal and real rigidities assumed in the model, but also to the number of instruments available to the Ramsey planner.

Service sector has been changed qualitatively and quantitatively in Iran over the time. Its share in sectoral value-added, GDP, employment and absorption of the resources has been increasing dramatically in recent years. In this paper, neutrality and super neutrality of money in service sector are tested using data on services’ value added, the monetary base, liquidity and money supply by using Fisher-Seater methodology during 1973-2015. In order to determine the degree of the stationary, various unit root tests are used. Since ADF, KPSS and PP unit root tests do not consider the structural breaks; this paper applies Zivot and Andrews unit root test. The results show that, firstly, Zivot & Andrews method is relevant to test for unit root because of structural breaks in variables. Secondly, money in the services sector is not neutral; and permanent changes in monetary variables affect real production. This leads policymakers to make expansionary monetary policies and consider the relevant costs incurred by people.

Time preference and intertemporal behavior are of basic importance in theoretical and applied studies of decision-making and economic analysis. Present-bias induces individuals to postpone their savings and makes the saving level less than its optimal level. This article studies the present-biased and time preferences in intertemporal consumption-saving behavior among selected students of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. It examines the effect of interest rate on intertemporal decision-making and tests the impacts of individual factors such as past experiences, gender and consumption expenditure on present-bias. Hence, after reviewing the theoretical basics, the parameters of individual present-biased and time preferences have been estimated by “ multiple price list” and “ convex time budget” methods. In this experiment, participants were faced with different decision-making situations along with changes in interest rates. The results of experiment show that participants are generally present-biased in their intertemporal behavior. In addition, individuals exhibit more present bias in “ multiple price list” method than “ convex time budget” method. While interest rate is an influential factor in intertemporal decision-making, but the intertemporal behavior of students is influenced by their past experiences. There is no significant relationship between gender and present bias. Furthermore, consumption expenditure was independent of present bias.

Population age structure is a main factor affecting government consumption expenditure. This paper examines the effects of changes in population age structure on government consumption expenditure by using a Mixed Frequency Data Sampling (MIDAS) approach. The estimation results indicate that population age structure are of positive and significant effects on government consumption expenditure. In addition, government consumption expenditure is forecasted for 2014. To assess the predictive power of the model, the actual data in 2014 was not used. The expenditure forecasted by the model is 1437079 billion Rials, and corresponding real value is 1438316 billion Rials. This indicates the goodness of fit of model.

This research aims to analyze interaction between governance and development in oil-exporting countries. In this regard, the interactions are compared in two groups of countries, namely oil-exporting countries in the Middle East and oil-exporting countries beyond the Middle East. The function of governance has become one of the fundamental issues, and the Middle East countries are particularly important for research because of their geographic location and oil revenues. In this paper, three-stage least squares method is used to estimate the model based on the World Bank data during 1996-2014, and Wald, Kruskal-Wallis, and Least Significant Difference (LSD) tests are used to check the research hypotheses. The results indicate a significant difference in interaction between governance and development among oil-exporting countries in the Middle East and those beyond the Middle East. In both groups of the countries, effect of development on governance was greater than that of the governance on development. Despite the similarity in oil exports, geographic environment (i. e. similarities in culture, religion, and some of customs) affects the interaction between governance and development. As such, paying adequate attention to the development not only improves its indices, but also enhances situation of the governance and hence improves their performance. This is also the case for the governance, but the rate of changes fueled by the development is higher.

Crime is a phenomenon studied from the perspective of sociology, psychology, law and economics. From the economic point of view, when economies face with economic problems such as inflation, unemployment, poverty, income inequality, and high necessary costs and so on, the expected rise in crimes is inevitable. Generally, robbery has a high share in economic crimes. In this study, an attempt is made to analyze the relationship between income inequality and robbery in Iran within a Bayesian model and Jeffry Prior approach. The period under study is from 1996 to 2012. The educational expenditure and inflation are used as control variables. The results indicate a positive relation between robbery and income inequality. Also, there is a negative relation between educational expenditure and robbery; however, the inflation has no significant effect on the robbery.

Poverty reduction and households’ welfare growth have become major issues in economic development in the recent years, so that poverty alleviation and individual’ s welfare improvement are necessary conditions for economic growth. Evidently, fighting poverty programs need to efficiency in policy-making, proper method of implementation of policies, and identification of dimensions, causes and consequences of poverty. Thus, examining the poverty situation in each society is the first step in planning for fighting poverty and social exclusion. In this study, the poverty line of Iran's urban households is computed by using the theory of relative habit linear expenditure system (RHLES) in a linear expenditure system (LES). Data are extracted from Households Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) in urban areas for 8 commodity-groups over the period 1989-2015, which five economic, cultural, and social development plans have been implemented. In addition, the poverty intensity is examined in urban areas using indices of poverty measurement. The results of study show that although the poverty line (minimum subsistence expenditure) in Iran's urban households goes up over time, but the intensity and extent of poverty go down. Thus, the government policies for the reduction of relative poverty in urban areas have been successful. According to findings, the minimum subsistence expenditure was 80296387 Rial in real terms (2011=100) in 1989, as the first year of the first 5-year development plan. It reached to 9677574 Rial in 2015 (the last year of the fifth 5-year development plan). In other words, it recorded a growth rate of 0. 7 percent, on average, during the five development plans. However, the intensity and extent of poverty have experienced decreasing trends during 1989-2015. In 2015, the indicators of head-count ratio, poverty gap and Foster, Greer and Thorbecke (FGT) reached their minimum levels by 31. 08, 10. 9 and 4. 3, respectively. The results confirm relative improvement in the subsistence level of urban households.